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Validating a Xylose Regulator to Increase Polyhydroxybutyrate Production for Utilizing Mixed Sugars from Lignocellulosic Biomass Using Escherichia coli

  • Suk-Jin Oh (Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University) ;
  • Hong-Ju Lee (Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University) ;
  • Jeong Hyeon Hwang (Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University) ;
  • Hyun Jin Kim (Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University) ;
  • Nara-Shin (Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University) ;
  • Sang-Ho Lee (Department of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Jeju National University) ;
  • Seung-Oh Seo (Department of Food Science and Technology, Seoul National University of Science and Technology) ;
  • Shashi Kant Bhatia (Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University) ;
  • Yung-Hun Yang (Department of Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University)
  • Received : 2023.06.05
  • Accepted : 2023.09.05
  • Published : 2024.03.28

Abstract

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) production from lignocellulosic biomass is economically beneficial. Because lignocellulosic biomass is a mixture rich in glucose and xylose, Escherichia coli, which prefers glucose, needs to overcome glucose repression for efficient biosugar use. To avoid glucose repression, here, we overexpressed a xylose regulator (xylR) in an E. coli strain expressing bktB, phaB, and phaC from Cupriavidus necator and evaluated the effect of xylR on PHB production. XylR overexpression increased xylose consumption from 0% to 46.53% and produced 4.45-fold more PHB than the control strain without xylR in a 1% sugar mixture of glucose and xylose (1:1). When the xylR-overexpressed strain was applied to sugars from lignocellulosic biomass, cell growth and PHB production of the strain showed a 4.7-fold increase from the control strain, yielding 2.58 ± 0.02 g/l PHB and 4.43 ± 0.28 g/l dry cell weight in a 1% hydrolysate mixture. XylR overexpression increased the expression of xylose operon genes by up to 1.7-fold. Moreover, the effect of xylR was substantially different in various E. coli strains. Overall, the results showed the effect of xylR overexpression on PHB production in a non-native PHB producer and the possible application of xylR for xylose utilization in E. coli.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by the Research Program to Solve Social Issues with the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT [Grant No. 2017M3A9E4077234], National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) [Grant Nos. NRF-2022M3I3A1082545, NRF-2022R1A2C2003138]. This study was also supported by the R&D Program of MOTIE/KEIT [Grant Nos. 20009508 and 20014350]. The authors also acknowledge the KU Research Professor Program of Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea.

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